Playing Around

Life has been very serious of late.  Mounting intensity on the day job, has kept me working long hours and generally wiped out when I arrive home.  Fortunately practices like Qi Gong and the Alexander Technique lie down help to rejuvenate me and get me to the guitar.  Issues in my right elbow has kept some practice sessions short, but I do what I can and the elbow is improving.

I've had two great practice sessions this week though on Monday and tonight.  Tonight I was interspersing playing around with a position of mechanical advantage shown to me but Pedro de Alcantara in a recent workshop. He calls this The Plunge and is described in his latest book Integrated Practice.  David Jernigan and I worked with this a bit during an AT class last night and when I came home I found the description in the book.  One thing I like about the Plunge is all I need is a wall, so I have experimented with this at work and in elevators and of course at home.

Sunday night I decided I needed to work with my pic for a change and took out a tremolo piece that came to me last year. The latest working title for this piece is Hymn 38.  Finding the proper tempo to learn this piece, I have begun learning it from the end as several people including Pedro have suggested. After making good progress with this tonight, I played through a few pieces and then began improvising with arppeggiating an A maj/min chord.  Finding a funky rhythm, I was moving this chord around and stumbled upon a nice transition to using fourth chords.  Just a little fun at the end of a long and productive day. And an area to continue to study.